Teens and young adults- dementia in fiction

Burying your head in a novel isn’t just a way to escape the world, fiction has the potential to improve a reader’s capacity to understand what others are thinking and feeling.
Last month we looked at dementia in fiction for adult readers. Today we take a look at some of the fiction available to our teen readers.

All of these titles are available for loan from Alzheimer’s Australia libraries or pop into your local public library and explore what they have.

Forgetting Foster / Dianne Touchell (2016)

He could no longer remember the first thing his father forgot.
Foster Sumner is seven years old. He likes toy soldiers, tadpole hunting, going to school and the beach. Best of all, he likes listening to his dad’s stories.
Forgetting Fosteris a compassionate observation which exposes the heartbreak and collateral damage to a family after the father is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Pop / Gordon Korman (2009)

Lonely after a midsummer move to a new town, sixteen-year-old high-school quarterback Marcus Jordan becomes friends with a retired professional linebacker who is great at training him, but whose childish behavior keeps Marcus in hot water.
He can’t believe his good luck when he finds out that Charlie is actually Charlie Popovich, or “the King of Pop,” as he had been nicknamed during his career as an NFL linebacker. But that’s not all. There is a secret about Charlie that his own family is desperate to hide.

Unbecoming / by Jenny Downham (2015)

Three women – three secrets – one heart-stopping story. Katie, seventeen, in love with someone whose identity she can’t reveal. Her mother Caroline, uptight, worn out and about to find the past catching up with her. Katie’s grandmother, Mary, back with the family after years of mysterious absence and ‘capable of anything’, despite living with Alzheimer’s disease. As Katie cares for an elderly woman who brings daily chaos to her life, she finds herself drawn to her.

Downeast ledge: a novel / Norman Gilliland (2013)

Changing times and personal failings have brought life to a standstill for the natives of Ashton, Maine. On the far side of the river that divides the coastal town, the prosperous summer residents come and go, seemingly complacent, without having much to do with the locals. But when Amber Waits crosses the river to take a job as a caregiver to Walter Sterling who has dementia, all bets are off. She finds herself thrown into the troubled lives of Walt, his distracted wife Geneva, and their resentful and reckless daughter Karen. And although he seems unaware of his surroundings, Walt begins to exert a strange influence on Amber and her friends.

The whole stupid way we are / N. Griffin (2013)

During a cold winter in Maine, fifteen-year-old Dinah sets off a heart-wrenching chain of events when she tries to help best friend and fellow misfit Skint deal with problems at home, including a father who has early onset dementia.

Curveball : the year I lost my grip / Jordan Sonnenblick (2012)

After an injury ends former star pitcher Peter Friedman’s athletic dreams, he concentrates on photography which leads him to a girlfriend, new fame as a high school sports photographer, and a deeper relationship with the beloved grandfather who, when he realizes he has dementia, gives Pete all of his professional camera gear.

The story of forgetting : a novel / Stefan Merrill Block (2008)

At seventy, Abel Haggard is a hermit, resigned to memories of the family he has lost, living in isolation on his family’s farm amid the encroaching suburban sprawl of Dallas. Hundreds of miles to the south in suburban Austin, fifteen year old Seth Waller is devastated when his mother’s increasingly eccentric behaviour is diagnosed as a rare, early-onset form of Alzheimer’s. He begins an ’empirical investigation’ to uncover the truth about her genetic history in order to understand the roots of this terrible disease. Though neither one knows of the other’s existence, Seth and Abel share a unique tradition: as children, both were told stories of Isadora, a fantastical land free from the sorrows of memory.

All That’s Missing / by Sarah Sullivan (2013)

Arlo’s grandfather travels in time. Not literally — he just mixes up the past with the present. Arlo holds on as best he can, fixing himself cornflakes for dinner and paying back the owner of the corner store for the sausages Poppo eats without remembering to pay. But how long before someone finds out that Arlo is taking care of the grandfather he lives with instead of the other way around? When Poppo lands in the hospital and a social worker comes to take charge, Arlo’s fear of foster care sends him alone across three hundred miles. Armed with a name and a town, Arlo finds his only other family member — the grandmother he doesn’t remember ever meeting. But just finding her isn’t enough to make them a family.

Click on the appropriate age group below to visit the Dementia in my familywebsite for reading lists for all our younger readers.